Sophisticated summer stock actors war with sober New England villagers in the Hasty Pudding's 102nd annual production, "Heart of Gold," which opens at 8:30 p.m. tonight at 12 Holyoke Street.

Seventeen songs and a frolicking chorus line pave the way for the eventual triumph of dramatic freedom over censorship in the lusty musical conceived by William S. Wheeling '50 and Russel A. Ames, Jr. '51.

The Pudding plans ten performances in Cambridge, one in New Haven, and four in New York.

Nicholas Benton '51 plays the ex-burlesque queen with the heart of gold, and Wayne A. Clark '52 plays her son, Alabams, who wants to be a playwright.

Actors William M. Pickles '50, Palmer T. Dizon '51, and Theodore K. Bullard '46, and actresses Lansing Lamont '52, and Kerry R. Lyne '52, are the principals in the theatrical company, while Hugh Shepley '51, Peter D. Dibble '50, and Frederick H. Gwynne '51 take the side of Puritanism. Lovely Roger L. Butler '61, plays Holly, a stage struck bobby-soxer.